Every act expresses the totality of the self rather than prior causes

Evidence

The principle of this psychoanalysis is that man is a totality and not a collection. Consequently he expresses himself as a whole in even his most insignificant and his most superficial behavior. In other words there is not a taste, a mannerism, or an human act which is not revealing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1334 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The difference between these two views turns upon contrastive understandings of the relationship between bodily behavior and the pious self: for Amna, performative behavior may signify a pious self but does not necessarily form it. For the women I worked with, bodily acts (like weeping in prayer), when performed repeatedly, both in public and private, endowed the self with certain qualities: bodily behavior was therefore not so much a sign of interiority as it was a means of acquiring its potentiality. I use the term “potentiality” here in its Aristotelian meaning, in which it does not suggest a generic faculty or power, but is linked to the abilities one acquires through specifi kinds of training and knowledge. This usage of “potentiality” implies that in order to be good at something one undergoes a teleological program of volitional training that presupposes an exemplary path to knowledge-knowledge that one comes to acquire through assiduous schooling and practice. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1022 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: An act is a transcendent psychic synthesis the for-itself must live — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 535; Every human act expresses the whole person, not a fragment — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1334; Acting for a cause is inseparable from acting for oneself (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Every human act expresses the whole person, not a fragment #corroborates (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1334
• Acting for a cause is inseparable from acting for oneself #corroborates (0.85)
• Repeated bodily practices form the self rather than merely express it #contradicts (0.80) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1022